Peace Profile of Sebastiano D’Ambra

A Peace Profile is a short biography about an individual peace activist or an organization dedicated to working for peace. It describes the individual or organization, what actions they have taken in working for peace, and what contributions or achievements they have made to foster peace in a particular peace issue or area of conflict.

Sebastiano D’Ambra is an Italian missionary priest who has been working for peace with Muslims and Christians in the southern part of the Philippines for almost four decades. In coming to the Philippines for the first time in 1977, the height of the Martial Law, he saw the violence and prejudice between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao, the burning of mosques and churches, the mutual killings, and the displacements of communities due to the fighting between the Philippine military and the Muslim rebels. He dreamed of peace in such a conflict-ridden place and so he founded the Silsilah dialogue movement, a holistic approach to cultivating the spirit of dialogue and peace between Muslims and Christians in Mindanao, Philippines. This movement for peace extends to the wider world which is also very much in need of peace. The work of D’Ambra in cultivating mutual understanding and peace between Christians and Muslims is very much called for in a world rife with terrorism, Islamophobia, and prejudice between Christians and Muslims.

This peace profile of Sebastiano D’Ambra is a humble contribution to the aims of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue. The full citation is:

The essay was published online by Taylor and Francis on 31 January 2017. Visitors to this site may contact me for a full copy of the manuscript of the article through this email: bfespiritu AT up.edu.ph.